University of Utah School of Medicine Commencement to Honor 104 New Doctors, Other Health-Care Professionals

University of Utah School of Medicine Commencement to Honor 104 New Doctors, Other Health-Care Professionals

May 18, 2006 6:00 PM

SALT LAKE CITY - More than 300 students-including 104 new
medical doctors-will graduate from the University of Utah School of
Medicine on Saturday (May 20) at Kingsbury Hall. Commencement takes
place at 10 a.m.

Geoffrey C. Tabin, M.D., professor of ophthalmology and visual
sciences at the U of U and a world-class mountaineer who has
climbed Mount Everest three times, will give the commencement
address, "Medicine: A Passion for Life!" Tabin, who is the director
of the John A. Moran Eye Center's Division of International
Ophthalmology and co-director of the Himalayan Cataract Project,
will talk about his work against a major public health-care crisis
in the Himalyan region: preventable blindness.

Along with the M.D. degrees, the medical school this year will
confer 26 doctorate degrees (Ph.D.s), 146 master of science and
philosophy degrees, and 25 bachelor of science degrees in
disciplines ranging from biochemistry to oncological sciences to
human genetics. Seventy-five of these students will receive master
of physician assistant studies degrees and 25 will receive master
of science in public health degrees.

Commencement speaker Tabin's love of climbing in the Himalaya
Mountains exposed him to blinding eye-disease problems in Nepal and
other areas in that region. Since 1994, he and a colleague, Dr.
Sanduk Ruit, have performed more than 100,000 sight-restoring
cataract operations on people in that part of the world.

Along with scaling Everest, Tabin has completed another of
climbing's great feats, known as the Seven Summits: He has climbed
the highest peak on each of the seven continents.

Representatives from the state board of regents, University
board of trustees and administrators, and medical school
administrators will take part in the commencement ceremony.